• To appreciate the controversy surrounding the provision of homeopathy on the NHS

funcing non evidence based medicine which patients choose then get reffered to evidence based medicine anyway cause the homeopathtic med did not work, or patients choose homeopathic over evidence based and get even sicker/die due to this basically sums it up

• To outline and explain five unethical effects that may arise if the NHS funds unproven treatments

the paper talks about how homeopathy is not researched and so it is unethical to be funding it when it has no evidence based medicine attributes.

homeopathy is potentially being used in a deceptive way as homeopathic doctors tell patients it has worked for other people but that may be the placebo effect

it costs the NHS more money as often people are reffered to homeopathy then it doesnt work so they are then reffered again to evidence based medicine costing the NHS more money than if evidence based med was used in the first place.

it is also considered harmful as patients who have serious problems that are time critical eg cancer may opt for homeopathtic NHS treatment which may cause serious serious harm due to the fact there is no evidence that it will help at all and will just prolong and worsen conditons

also the licensing system for introduction of homeopathic therapies into the NHS was purely based on what the UK practicioners of homeopathic medicine think, therefore it is absoloutely not evidence based and may even be subject to conflicts of intrest or bribery to these practicioners

funding homeopathy distracts attention from the fact that there are other complementary therapies that are efficacious

Members of the public who are unconvinced by the merits of homeopathy are likely to think the same thing about all complementary/alternative medicine, some of which is proven to be better than placebo